Editorial: This one's not a quango, it's a good example

Chris Finlayson. Photo / APN

In its quest to save some money, the Government this week went on a quango-shoot. It has been so long since this last happened that many might not remember the acronym means "quasi-autonomous non-government organisation".

The Government has lined up quite a number of them for possible abolition or amalgamation. They include health, education, arts and broadcasting agencies, and - to the astonishment of newspapers - the Press Council.

The Government does not administer or pay for the Press Council, the newspaper industry does. It has been set up with an independent chairman and a majority of members from outside the industry to adjudicate on formal complaints. It is not "quasi-autonomous", it is completely autonomous of Parliament and the Government.

There is no reason to fear that its inclusion in the Government's review of quangos in the cultural sector was anything more than a mistake. Probably most people assume that any organisation exercising authority in New Zealand is some sort of arm of the state. It is a consequence of how many institutions rely on public funds.

But newspapers do not rely on state support and hopefully never will. It is important in a democracy that at least some news and cultural organisations are truly independent of the public purse and free to scrutinise and criticise those who hold the purse strings.

Newspapers survive on sales and advertising income. The advertising industry maintains a similar authority to adjudicate on complaints and it, too, is surprised to be included in the Government's review.

The rulings of the Press Council and the Advertising Standards Authority probably do not always please complainants, any more than they please newspapers obliged to publish the council's findings against them. But as long as complaints receive fair consideration and papers meet their obligation to publish adverse findings, "self regulation" remains credible and an independent news media can be preserved.

Far from threatening this autonomy, the Government's review may be considering extending it to broadcasting. The Minister of Arts, Culture and Heritage, Chris Finlayson, says the Press Council and the Advertising Standards Authority could be "good models" for the Broadcasting Standards Authority, which operates under legislation of Parliament.

Broadcasting does receive public money, particularly for television productions supported by the state agency NZ on Air. There are state-owned radio and television networks, and the state owns the airwaves that private broadcasters are obliged to lease.

Public funding does not make public broadcasters beholden to governments, any more than private broadcasters are beholden to advertisers. But a Government-appointed regulator is a different matter.

The Government's appointees to the Broadcasting Standards Authority are starting to make more conservative rulings on the sexual content of programmes. The appointees might be accurately reflecting broad public concern, but who can be sure?

It is not in the industry's interest to offend the taste of its audience or expose children to unsuitable material. An industry-appointed broadcasting authority would take care to discern where the boundaries lie, and its findings could be more credible than those of liberal or conservative political appointees.

Independence, once lost, is hard to win back. Broadcasters who want to become self-regulating may have a rare opportunity in this quango cull. We wish them success.